Time for another survey trip snippet! We spent most of Monday visiting two of the university campuses in Conce. There are 5 or 6 universities in the city with Universidad de Concepcion being the biggest and nicest and best. That is where we began. We were joined by a family friend of Sara's, Katy, who is a professor and nuclear biologist or something crazy like that.

Ellen was mad and tried to punch Gary....JK!

Katy was so sweet and gave us a wonderful tour of the campus. She answered all of our questions and put up with us taking forever to get anywhere. We talk a lot and we were just soaking in the beauty of the campus, the energy of the students and the excitement of the possibilities of ministry there. The school has 26,000 students!!!

Aren't they such beautiful people! I could have sat around and people watched all day!

Education is very important to Chileans and getting into a good university is crucial for success in their society. Many of the jovenes (youth) also have a desire to help those in need. They do not see the church as an organization that helps so they find other ways. We dreamed about having tutoring to have fortunate students help less fortunate students get into a good university. Also, we hope to be involved in social justice ourselves and to also provide opportunities to walk alongside students in this.

This is a location on campus that students gather at for concerts, plays, rallies, and other activities. I have never seen a campus in Latin American look like this one, all spread out with tons of open space and landscaping. They are usually crammed into small buildings and spread out around the city.

Cannot miss an opportunity for a photo op. There are more to come I promise!!!

This is a beautiful view of the campus from on top of a hill. Katy knew all the good spots!!! By this point in the morning we were quite famished. We would eat breakfast at like 8:30am but in Chile they do not eat lunch till 2pm. By that time every day I was ready to bite my own arm off despite my many snacks!

I wonder what they are talking about!!! :)

Entrance to the campus

After U de Conce we headed to a smaller, more typical Latin university called Santo Tomas. It is pretty new, in university standards, and had much fewer students. It is private and less prestigious than U de Conce, but still a good school.

View from the outside


Here we met with sweet, warm, encouraging, positive, Nancy....NOT! I am pretty sure the term Negative Nancy was coined after her! But despite her coldness and discouragement of NA missionaries we learned A LOT from her. Sometimes it is difficult to hear that you are not needed and other people like you have screwed up so you are going to too and yet there was some truth to the words she spoke to us. It reminded us of the sensitive nature of working in a different culture and how quickly we can negatively influence people in a way that they will hold onto for years.


Despite her negativeness we also learned a lot from her. She gave us her perspective on being a middle class Protestant in a Catholic country where all the Protestant missionaries have gone to the poor. She mentioned over and over again the need for churches for the professional class and for a place for them to be involved in leadership and not just sit back and let the priests do all the work.

Nancy, I thank you for your honesty and bluntness. As scary as you were, your words will help us to remember the importance of partnership and not being saviors but walking alongside Chileans as brothers and sisters, as equals and and as sinners.